A Good Time for Extra Training
by GhostWhiter
Summary: As Christmas Day dawns, Shego inadvertently comes face to face with the emptiness of her existence.
1. Chapter 1

The characters of the Kim Possible TV show are not mine and belong to **S.O.M.M.O.** (Some Other Mickey Mouse Operation). They are used here without permission of their creators or owners. No profit has been intended or made on the part of this author and for legal purposes the following story should be considered a parody.

**A Good Time for Extra Training**

She ran, leaped, and dodged her way through the obstacle course for the ninth time today, still trying to beat the record time that she had set on her third attempt through it. As she cleared the last hurdle, she barely heard the whir of a stun ray focusing in on her position and had to twist in mid air to avoid it before she could hit the large button on the wall marking her completion of the course.

Spending a few moments catching her breath she took a couple gulps of water from a nearby bottle and checked her time on the large digital readout set above the finish button – 5 minutes and 52 point 3 seconds. She snarled and without thinking, prepared to destroy the offending digits with a plasma fist. As she reared back to strike, Shego's expression changed, she de-ignited her hand and let it drop limply to her side. She had to admit to herself that alternating workout sessions in the gym with runs through the automated obstacle course for the entire day had left her bordering on exhaustion and she wasn't going to be able to improve her best time tonight. If she had taken out her frustration on the control circuits of the obstacle course (made up of a multitude of failed death rays and rejected robotic limbs that Doctor Drakken had built up over time), then she wouldn't have it to keep her busy again tomorrow, and THAT would not be good at all.

Shego felt her stomach rumbling, reminding her that she had continued her workouts well past dinnertime. Although she dreaded it, there was nothing more to do, but close the place up, go home, fix herself something to eat, and then go to bed. At least she should finally be able to sleep well tonight. She flicked a series of switches to put the automated mechanisms in full shutdown mode and took the time to make visibly sure that the entire course had completely powered down. She grabbed her towel and water bottle and walked out the room making sure to close and lock the door behind her, once she was in the adjacent hangar bay. Walking past the idle hovercrafts to the other side of the dimly lit hangar, her boots echoed eerily in the strangely silent cavern. Once on the other side of the hanger, she made her way down the corridor past the idle laboratory area and the now empty living quarters for the henchmen that Doctor D employed. Only the sound of her own footfalls could be heard. Turning right near the end of the corridor, she entered the kitchen area where she promptly drank up the last of her water, tossed the bottle in the recycling bin, and thought to herself _"How can he call himself a villain, when he even obeys the local recycling laws?"_ while she grabbed a fresh bottle from the refrigerator.

Coming out of the kitchen the way she came in, Shego turned right again and made her way to the end of the corridor where she entered the utility room. She shut down the power to most of the lair except for the critical systems, leaving most of the place bathed only in the eerie glow of the emergency lights. Returning to the corridor, Shego lit her left hand and held it aloft to provide illumination for her journey down the corridor and back through the hangar area, her footsteps once more echoing back to her as she walked. She made her way to a simple metal door near the main hangar bay doors, entered an alarm code on the keypad and left the lair through it, closing and locking it behind her. She put on the parka she had previously left by the entrance on the way in and made her way through the dark to the camouflaged hovercraft that she had parked outside earlier. Shego used a keychain remote (the stupid thing even chirped like a car remote) to disengage the cloaking system and open the dome to the craft and then performed an acrobatic front somersault into the vehicle. She re-engaged the transparent dome cover to protect her from the harsh mountain winter chill and lifted off into the night sky.

After setting the autopilot and checking the radar for other low flying craft, there was nothing else to do but occasionally glance at the radar screen and watch the town of Middleton pass below her. The closed and darkened stores downtown contrasted sharply with all the festively lit houses in the residential neighborhoods and she tried not to let her mind wander to what was probably transpiring inside many of those homes as she silently passed over each of them. After what seemed like an interminably long time to her, the craft at last glided out over first the suburban developments and then progressively more open countryside, where still, time after time, the clusters of cars overfilling the occasional private drive would feed the increasing uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. Finally, the shuttle came upon a small green country house set back in the wooded hills such distance from the "main" road that the only evidence of it's location to anyone passing by would be the empty mailbox next to the snow covered dirt path leading back to it.

Shego settled the craft down into a tightly clustered cove of evergreen trees close to the rear of the building before disengaging the cloak and the dome and jumping out of the vehicle. She turned and used the remote the re-engage the dome and cloak, sighing heavily as the vehicle chirped to indicate that it was secure (how could he perfect such inane details but forget to build a cooling system into his last death ray so that it wouldn't overheat and blow up?). Pulling her parka halfway up her arm, she once more ignited her plasma in order to see where she was going—the lonely house was dark and the snow-covered steps could be treacherous in the cold night. The only sounds to be heard were the crunch of snow under her boots and the rustling of the trees in the wind as she made her way to the back door, unlocked it and let herself in.

Turning on the light, she shed her overcoat and boots and walked over to the freezer to find something to stick in the microwave for a quick meal. She hadn't been shopping in quite a while and it now came back to haunt her in the fact that the only choices she had in a frozen dinner were the few remnants that had consistently been passed over for tastier fare. With the way that her thoughts started roiling on the trip home, she found her logic (she needed to eat something since it was way past dinner and she had skipped lunch) at odds with her feelings. Her belly felt like she had swallowed a leaden weight and none of her remaining frozen dinners looked even remotely appetizing – not when compared to all of the happy people that she knew she had flown past whom she imagined, were in a comfortable stupor still trying to digest their second slice of pie. She quickly got angry with herself for letting her thoughts wander there and simply grabbed the top entrée and flung it in the microwave before mashing the numeric keypad to set it for 5 minutes.

Shego ran upstairs to grab a quick shower rather than waiting for her food to finish cooking, hoping that the stimulating feel of warm water on her flesh would help calm her mood. She finished her shower feeling somewhat better and took a moment to slick the excess moisture off her alabaster skin before stepping out of the shower stall. Drying herself thoroughly with one of the bath sheets, she grabbed a second one and padded off her bedroom. After lightly applying powder to her strategic areas, she slipped on a pair of panties and dropped a nightshirt over her head and down her body, then she carefully wrapped her still wet mane of dark hair in the bath sheet she had brought with her and piled it on top of her head. For some reason, Shego always enjoyed the routine of showering and getting ready for bed and this time did not prove any different. Finally feeling much better, she slipped on a pair of bedroom slippers and headed back to the kitchen to warm up and retrieve her meal.

Coming back into the living room with her suddenly appetizing steaming food and a fork, Shego plopped down on the couch across from the television and already had the remote in hand and aiming at the device when she gave pause. She knew that flipping through this night's programming would bombard her with reminders of the holiday she was trying to ignore and considered leaving the cursed thing off. Unfortunately, that choice would leave her mind undistracted and free to contemplate what everyone else would be enjoying this night – so she instinctively looked around the room for something else to busy herself. This only served to remind her that since moving in she had only set up the barest of essential furniture. Her living room only contained the couch, the television, a floor lamp, coffee table, a throw rug and some blinds on the windows, nor was the rest of the house any better – all of the walls and nearly all of the flat surfaces throughout the house were devoid of decoration or personal items.

At that moment it hit her that although this might be her house...her gnawing fears had never let her turn it into a home.

The leaden feeling in her stomach returned with a vengeance, and Shego mechanically consumed the food which was once more just meager sustenance. Afterward, she went to the kitchen to toss her container in the trash and her fork in the sink. With nothing more she needed or wanted to do, she came back through the house turning out the lights as she went, ascended the stairs and took herself to bed.

She lay on one side of her king-size bed, in the near pitch-blackness, trying to will herself to sleep while listening to the bitterly cold wind howl outside her windows. Though she logically knew the house was warm, she could not help but feel chilled. After a mentally berating herself for being a silly child, she got out of bed, went over to one of the boxes she had never unpacked and pulled out a heavy spare blanket. Shego arranged the blanket on the bed, crawled back under the covers and pulled them up tightly to her chin. She turned on her side and scrunched herself up against the imagined chill, allowing her hand to splay out toward the empty side of the bed. Subconsciously, her hand wandered up and down the other side of the bed as though searching for…something. Sighing deeply in frustration, because she knew how unlikely it was that anything like that was going to happen anytime soon, she pressed the pillow from the empty side of the bed against her body as a poor substitute. After a long while, she finally drifted off into a fitful sleep.

* * *

_Shego lazily awoke to faint sound of carols playing on the stereo downstairs. She pulled the pillow and covers from the far side of the bed to her and breathed in deeply. She softly smiled as they still smelled like him, so she hunkered tightly into the linens and allowed herself to languish in his scent for a few moments before the more distant scents of pine and chicory roast permeated her senses and prodded her to rise. She stopped in the bathroom to freshen up for a few moments before putting on a long, soft silken robe and quietly padding barefoot down the stairs. Stopping halfway down she allowed herself a few moments to let her senses take in the crackle and radiant warmth of the fireplace and how that fit perfectly with the soft twinkling of the lights on the tall tree._

"_It's even nicer from over here," a warm, strong voice gently spoke to her as he turned halfway around on the couch to look at her. An affectionate smile came to his face and his blue eyes shone with appreciation, as he took in all of her standing on the steps before his eyes lifted to meet hers. "As much as I could enjoy sitting here and just admiring your beauty from afar, I'm thinking you're kind of cold with the way you have your arms wrapped around yourself. Why don't I get you a fresh steaming mug of chicory roast and you can join me by the fire?"_

_ He soon returned with a tray containing mugs of coffee and tea. He set the tray on the coffee table, unfurled the quilt from the back of the couch, sat down and wordlessly invited her to join him. She sat back into his open arm and leaned against him as he arranged the quilt around them. He then used his long reach to pluck the mugs off the table and handed the mug of chicory roast coffee to her. She took it with a simple "Thank you" and settled herself against him to enjoy the warmth of the fire, the simple light show of the Christmas tree & the carols from the stereo, and the secure comfort of his arm around her._

_ They sat in comfortable silence for awhile drinking in the blessings of a warm home and loving company, communicating all that needed to be said with casual caresses on his part and contented sighs and gentle touches to acknowledge him on hers. The spell of that perfect moment was broken when he gently slid himself out from behind her, in spite of a soft groan of protest from Shego, and went to the backdoor to get more logs for the fire._

_ After restocking the fireplace and stoking the embers to get it burning again, he returned to the couch and took the hand that she offered. She used her leverage to attempt to pull him down to her, but he instinctively shifted his stance and resisted for a fraction of a second before smiling and allowing himself to be pulled down to her waiting lips. The kiss was gentle and loving more than it was passionate, and as he broke it he trailed small, nibbling kisses along her lower lip. She pulled him back to her into a deeper kiss and they held onto it longer before he broke it to string those same small, nibbling kisses along her upper lip this time. These had the contradictory effects of giving her chills running down her spine while her cheeks flushed in warmth. She sighed contentedly from those sensations and prepared to pull him into a heated kiss that would fully communicate "I need you" to him until she felt his forefinger in front of her nose and lips._

_ She looked up at him in surprise. "As much as I would just love to let this escalate, we both know that I have to leave in a while to join my girls. Please don't make that any more difficult than it has to be." Eventually, she nodded her assent and he pulled her up to him and into a hug. They broke the hug and he held out a small oblong shaped box wrapped in black & green foil paper and tied with a green ribbon, "Merry Christmas, Love."_

_ She unwrapped the hinged box and opened it. Inside, she found a forest-green emerald with diamond accent pendant set in platinum with matching earrings. "Now this should be your green," he told her. "The emeralds will really bring out your beautiful green eyes and the platinum will compliment your skin tone better than gold would. It occurred to me that those 'flaming fists of fury' might make short work of a ring or bracelet, so I decided on a necklace."_

_ Still dressed only in a silk bathrobe, Shego went over to a nearby mirror to put on her new jewelry. She took a moment to admire how they looked on her and decided that he was absolutely right in his assessment. She deliberately sauntered back to him on the couch, leaned her arms heavily into the cushions on either side of him, and trapped his lips in a searing kiss that conveyed just how deeply she appreciated the gift. She broke the kiss and when her eyes regained focus, she noted it to a second longer for his eyes to lock onto hers—she was definitely having an effect on him. "Good," she thought and then said aloud "They're beautiful, thank you. But, I'm kind of surprised that you know so much about color and jewelry."_

"_The color was easy," he told her. "I find it difficult to __**not**__ spend all my time observing my beautiful green goddess when she's near." She lowered her head slightly to hide her smile and blush at his compliment, amazed that he could bring out the emotional girl inside her that she would have sworn was dead and gone not so long ago. "And, since I know a jeweler who has been a friend of my family for decades, I was able to select the finest emeralds from his entire stock. The hardest part was ignoring all of the inquisitive looks I was getting." She lowered her head a bit more to disguise her embarrassment at his last statement._

_ After a moment, she composed herself quickly, got up and retrieved a gift from under the tree. "I have a few surprises for you too, Mister," as she tried to recover her best snarky tone. She could tell immediately that she had failed that by the way his blue eyes looked right through her._

_ As he took the present from her, he allowed his hand to linger on her hand and he locked his gaze to hers, the small gesture giving her hope from her earlier moment of trepidation. "Thank you," he simply said and turned his attention to unwrapping, then opening the package. As he lifted the old tome from its last protective covering he gasped in awe as he realized that he was holding a piece of history in his hands—a first edition illustrated copy of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." When his eyes rose to meet hers there was an unmistakable question in them._

"_I didn't steal the damn thing!" she huffed while she turned her back to him, mentally chiding herself for acting like a child and wondering why she just didn't respond to his offense with a volley of plasma blasts. 'Because that would probably mean you would end up losing him and how he makes you feel so alive,' a voice from the back of her mind told her. She explained herself to him softly with her back still turned, "I got it as partial payment for the recovery of artifacts stolen from a collector who has more money than he knows what to do with…'cause I really thought you'd like it."_

_ A hand was laid softly on her shoulder from behind her, "I'm sorry. It is an incredible gift…thank you so very much. However, you should be able to understand my concern. It becomes just some musty old book to me if having it means I might have to lose having you beside me." _

_ Shego fought the urge to continue to be angry and decided to get her agenda back on track—she whirled and wrapped him up in a crushing bear hug. She pulled him down into a kiss, deepening it as it continued. She pulled away from the kiss and told him, "I forgive you for being suspicious." She backed up a couple of steps, loosened the sash on her robe and let it slip down off her shoulders and body, revealing what she had worn under her robe, just for him. "Do you forgive me for getting angry?" she asked him coyly._

_ He mouthed silently, like a fish out of water, doubly stunned by sudden display of nearly girlish behavior and the equally sudden display of provocatively packaged womanly perfection. To his credit, he partially recovered his thoughts quickly, "I…uh…yeah…sure, I forgive you?" Then he fully recovered his cognitive functions, "No fair, Love. I already told you that I have to leave soon to see the girls. What good does it do to just frustrate me?"_

_ She smiled devilishly at him, feeling once more in control of the situation. "Perhaps you'd be interested in my next surprise. I brought my VTOL jet home last night. It's out back, fueled up and the flight plan is already on file." She stepped right up against him and whispered, "I can get you there in almost no time."_

_ "Does that mean you'll be joining me for the rest of the day?" he asked, hopefully. When she silently nodded her agreement, he picked her up in a bear hug and spun her around, "Wonderful! I know that they'll love you." He shifted his grip to drape her across his arms, and leaned down to give her a slow, sweet, romantic kiss, "Thank you. I know how difficult it is for you to open up and leave yourself vulnerable to others. But I know that they will see in you what I do."_

_ He carried Shego around the couch and progressed to the bottom of steps before a soft hand on his chest stopped him. He looked at her with curiosity on his face at the worry that was now evident in her eyes. 'This is it, now or never,' she told herself. She reached around his head and gently pulled his forehead to hers, enshrouding them both in her long raven hair, pulling them both into their own private world where nothing or no one would intrude on them. With all of the danger she had faced in her life, this was the most frightening thing that she ever had to do, because she would be vulnerable and powerless. "I…love you," she whispered her voice hoarse and cracking with desperation._

_ The momentary silence was deafening, as surprise at what she had said at first registered on his features, until he let out a soft sigh and a warm smile crossed his face. He kissed her softly and told her, "My darling, I certainly don't object…but, you don't have to seduce me to get me to tell you that I lo…"_ SHUMP!


	2. Chapter 2

I want to thank King in Yellow, Sir Sebastian, Mr.Wizzard, aedan cameron & TransWarpDrive for the kind words. I hope this lives up to expectations as I am pushing it more than a bit to get it done.

The characters of the Kim Possible TV show are not mine and belong to Disney, though I would love to see them sue for legal emancipation due to neglect. Passages of "It's a Wonderful Life" are the property Columbia Pictures. They are used here without permission of their creators or owners. No profit has been intended or made on the part of this author and for legal purposes the following story should be considered a parody.

**A Good Time for Extra Training, Chapter 2**

_He carried Shego around the couch and progressed to the bottom of steps before a soft hand on his chest stopped him. He looked at her with curiosity on his face at the worry that was now evident in her eyes. 'This is it, now or never," she told herself. She reached around his head and gently pulled his forehead to hers, enshrouding them both in her long raven hair, pulling them both into their own private world where nothing or no one would intrude on them. With all of the danger she had faced in her life, this was the most frightening thing that she ever had to do, because she would be vulnerable and powerless. "I…love you," she whispered her voice hoarse and cracking with desperation._

_The momentary silence was deafening, as surprise at what she had said at first registered on his features, until he let a soft sigh and a warm smile crossed his face. He kissed her softly and told her, "My darling, I certainly don't object…but, you don't have to seduce me to get me to tell you that I lo…" _SHUMP!

In a flash, Shego had acrobatically vaulted from lying on the bed asleep to wide awake and standing several feet clear of it with her hands ablaze. Heart in her mouth, she quickly controlled her breathing and then took in her surroundings listening closely for further sounds from possible intruders. Except for the chilled moan of the wind outside, the house was silent and gloomy in the grey semi-dawn.

After a minute more standing stock still, poised for battle and tensely listening for the slightest of sounds, Shego loosened only slightly as she carefully and silently made her way to the edge of the first window and pressed herself flat against the wall to peer out behind the blinds without disturbing them. Several terse seconds later, she concluded that she saw neither movement nor any footprints in the snow from the tree line up to her house. She gracefully sank into a deep crouch and spun on the pads of her bare feet to repeat the process from the other side of the window with the same result. Back to the wall, still painstakingly alert for the slightest abnormal sound, Shego slid over to the second window and peered out from the one side of the blinds of the second window until satisfied she had missed nothing from her vantage, spun 180 degrees in a low crouch under this window and searched for the most miniscule sign of attack from her next observation point. She cursed herself for leaving the portable infrared scanner downstairs in what would pass for the dining room instead of remembering to bring it with her to her bedroom last night. Letting her emotional state get the best of her was going to get her hurt or killed one of these days she mentally told herself. Her mental lapse meant that she was going to have to do this the hard way. She slunk soundlessly from room to room and repeated the entire procedure at each upstairs window of the house, including the window beside the stairway (the one she had installed shortly after she bought the house so she couldn't be blindsided from that direction when she was upstairs).

After slinking silently along the interior wall of the steps, she took a calming breath and vaulted over the railing where the steps opened into the living room. Landing nearly in the middle of the room, she dropped immediately into a defensive crouch and spun on the ball of one foot ready to launch a concussive blast at any intruder ready to take advantage of her giving up her cover. Seeing no one she half-raised out of her crouch and darted through the dining room, making sure to perform a couple of quick glances to the other side of that room while keeping on the move into the kitchen. Crossing the kitchen threshold, she rolled into the center of the room, coming up into another low crouch and spun once more on the ball of her foot, ready to blast, as she visually swept the last room.

Deciding that the interior of her house was secure, Shego wasted no time in backtracking into the dining room to retrieve the portable infrared scanner. Now, she repeated her visual check of the outside at each side of every downstairs window of the house with the added benefit of being able to "see" any heat signatures that might be hiding behind the trees and overgrowth at the edge of the woods.

Thankfully, there was nothing to be seen, no footprints except for animal tracks near the tree line at the back of the house, and nothing out of the ordinary except for freshly piled snow up against the staircase side of the house with a snowy mist still collecting on those windows--the snow there had apparently just recently slid off the roof onto the ground below. She mentally gave herself the "all clear" and allowed herself to fully exhale at last. _"All that grief for nothing,"_ Shego groused to herself She could relax a little bit now that she was satisfied that her house wasn't being ambushed by Global Justice or one of her or Drakken's villainous rivals.

Even though it was barely past dawn, there was no way at all that she was going to get back to sleep now. So, Shego went back to her bedroom, quickly dressed in her work clothes of a form fitting green and black cat suit with opposite colored gloves and boots, and then went downstairs to the kitchen. There she put on some coffee, then she grabbed the remnants of a loaf of bread to make some toast, but the blue and gray spots on several of the slices convinced her to just toss the whole bag into the trash. A quick inspection of the carton of milk convinced her that it too was well past its expiration, so even cold cereal was not an option. Since the stores would open late due to holiday hours, she would either have to wait a while to get something for breakfast, or go hungry in order to return to the lair to continue her training exercises first thing.

Thinking of the hollow feeling in her stomach, she decided to wait out the store opening. She hauled herself back out to the living room and plopped on the couch. Still not wanting to brave the holiday fare that would bombard her from the idiot box while waiting for her coffee to brew, she found herself with nothing to do but stare at the blank walls made no more inviting by what little gray light that did manage to filter through the blinds.

The images from her dream came back vividly to her, and now the bare grayed walls seemed oppressive—reminding her of prison. _"No Christmas tree. No twinkling lights. No thoughtful gifts,"_ she thought. Unconsciously, she blinked her eyes against some irritation and clutched her arms across her chest tightly._ "No warm fire. No warm arms to wrap around me." _Shego sighed deeply, closed her eyes, and leaned her head back against the couch. _"No blue eyes with warm looks. No caresses. No warm kisses_…"

Suddenly her eyes shot open and she shook her head violently. _"I don't sit around and daydream. And I don't do self-pity!"_ she mentally scolded herself. She looked around for something, anything to do instead of this. Spying the remote, she scooped it up and jammed her finger on the power button. Shego clicked past a Christmas parade (at this hour?), a half-dozen talk shows about holiday decorating on a dime, and a least three different cable channels showing the same Snowman Hank Christmas episode yet again, before settling in on the classic movie station. Since the station seemed to be showing a commercial marathon instead of a movie marathon, she took a quick trip back to the kitchen to finally get her cup of coffee.

Returning to the living room with her steaming cup of coffee, Shego half-heartedly began to watch the black & white classic movie – some young couple were dancing at a prom or the like (since it was a decorated school gymnasium), when the floor started to open up revealing a swimming pool below. Surprisingly, the couple kept on dancing until they fell into the water and still kept "dancing" as the floor continued to open up and nearly everyone in the gym wound up joining the couple in the water. Her curiosity was piqued: _"That's certainly something you don't see everyday and it's not another Christmas program. I think I'll watch this."_ Returning her attention to the television, the scene cut to the young couple walking home from the dance in a….old time football uniform and a bathrobe? Apparently, the guy's name was George and the girl's name was Mary—as they were walking along talking, he stopped, threw a rock at an old abandoned house, and broke a window:

Mary: What did you wish, George?

George: "Well, not just one wish. A whole hatful. Mary, I know what I going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that. I'm shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon…the Coliseum…"

"_Seeing the world isn't all it's cracked up to be, George,_" Shego thought. _"After a while a lair or hotel room in one country looks just like the lair or hotel room in the next country and the one after that and the one after that…" _She considered Drakken and the various henchmen with whom she had shared a lair, _"and if you don't know the language, there is absolutely no one to have an intelligent conversation with._"

Shego sipped her hot coffee and tried to forget about her feelings as she was caught up in the life story of George Bailey and how he could never seem to escape the town of Bedford Falls. She watched as George raced home when his father had a stroke, _"I hope you got to say goodbye, George. I never did_." She watched as a few years down the road George's mother pushed him out the door to visit Mary when she came back into town_ "You would have tried to make sure your wild little Sherilynn managed to find a nice guy, wouldn't you, Mom? I wish you could have been here to at least try." _Remembering the images and feelings from her dream and then looking around her barren walls and house she sighed,_ "Sometimes I even wish you could have been here and succeeded."_

She watched as George worked hard just to keep things afloat in Bedford Falls while he watched his brother do the things that got all the headlines and glory,_ "I feel for you Georgie," _as she remembered her Team Go days,_ "I really feel for you on that one." _She watched as George gave up his honeymoon money right after his wedding in order to save his family's little savings and loan from a bank run,_ "I guess…I never had anything I cared about that much, George." _She watched as George came home to Mary after the bank run, on his wedding night, penniless. Mary didn't care about that at all and arranged a romantic little fantasy for George to make it clear just how much she appreciated and admired him_, "I can't recall anyone doing anything romantic for me, just because, in my life, George. You don't know how lucky you are." _Shego barely managed to blink back the tears burning at the corner of her eyes—she honestly could not recall the last time a man looked at her with anything but greed (for what she could do for them), lust, or fear in his eyes.

She watched, as due to the dishonesty of another, the institution that was George Bailey's entire career was facing ruination, and George would likely wind up taking the blame. _"That hits a little too close to home,"_ as the events that ended her heroic career vividly came back and deepened her melancholy mood. Then she watched as George's friends and neighbors rallied around him in his darkest hour, giving whatever they could manage to afford to rescue him from ruination. _"No one cares enough to be there for me," _she thought as the tears came to her eyes.

She had no friends left because they had all drifted away when she had become a literally explosive green freak. She had no lovers because when she made it abundantly clear that she did not want Drakken's goons pawing her, she had quickly gained a reputation that now kept the decent guys away. And what little she had left of family would probably sooner lock her up in the name of supposed justice as look at her, "_I just wish I could at least see the twins again without having to be lobotomized by the __Attitudinator_"

As the movie drew to a close, George stood surrounded by his family, friends and neighbors. His brother with obvious admiration in his voice proposed a toast to the gathered throng, "To George Bailey, the 'richest' man in Bedford Falls." Hugs and kisses were exchanged all around and the closing credits began to roll. Shego looked up from the television and saw her empty room, her empty house...

...her empty life.

"What I have I done to deserve this?" she cried to no one as the tears began to flow freely. All of the henchmen had someone to go home to. Even that sniveling fool Drakken had run back home to Christmas with his mommy, without a thought of what Shego would be doing for the holidays. Why was she singled out to be left alone?

Shego was sobbing openly now as, without thought, she slid off the couch and onto the floor.

She would never make it to the store today, nor would she make it to the lair. She would spend this Christmas day as she had spent so many Christmas days before…

…alone with her tears.

* * *

Here's hoping you find what you're looking for under your Christmas tree this year—but more important than the gifts under the tree, is whom those gifts are from or for. If I wish anything for you this holiday season, then I wish you plenty of extra hugs and kisses. When it is all said and done, the love and appreciation of those we allow to be close to us is the only thing we can truly call our own.

Merry Christmas, and may God bless,

GhostWhiter


End file.
